I don’t get poetry.  I thought I did, at times like in college, high school, and even elementary school.  In sixth grade, my teacher invited poet Georgia Heard to come to my class and teach us about writing poems and to listen to some of our poems.  I remember reading my poem to her and the class (I even remember the poem and what it was about!) and some of her kind words about it.  In high school and college I can remember writing essays about poems and, at the time, I thought I was pretty confident in my understanding of the whole “words as art” motif.  I even bought a book of Shakespearean sonnets as they are still my favorite form of poetry.  However, this is in no wise a comprehensive history of the relationship between myself and poetry, I merely want  you to understand that, yeah, I thought I had an understanding of an art form that I have had a long and varied past with.  Then something comes along to shatter my confidence in that relationship.

What in the heck is this?  As one of the unwashed layman masses who does not possess a Master’s degree in any of the wordsmithing arts, I’d have to succinctly sum my exasperation as thus: what the heck?  Now let me write this quick disclaimer: I have no qualms about the subject matter.  I may have qualms with President-Elect Obama’s policies, but I know that the first African-American President of the United States is something to be celebrated.  I just don’t want to bring politics into this post.  No, my quarrel here is with the sludge that these master poets have passed off as poetry.

For example, in the animated Flash poems that Christopher Funkhouser made, one of them actually includes the phrases “pregnant man”, “pride bacon” and “why do leg cramps”.  They’re just hanging out in the “poem”, not even connected to any other words, and unless I’m missing something, have absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter.  Yet this man is an associate professor of humanities. Eh?

And then there’s Alice Walker’s poem.  Apparently, you can write a poem by putting just one word of a sentence on it’s own line.  Sometimes, it doesn’t even have to be a word, or even a letter, an ampersand will do!

And Bob Holman just scares me.  I’m talking more about the video of his recitation, than his poem, although his poem scares me as well.  I mean, he does know that A. Obama is not a king, let alone an African King, (I guess poets can suspend democracy like the Roman Empire?) and B. He is not in Africa.  He does know these things right?  Right?

Do any of these people make money doing this?  Because, if so, sign me up.  I’d like to jump all over that bandwagon.  Or is this an “The Emperor’s New Clothes” kind of situation, where, even though the stuff you produce is an utter and total farce, as long as you’re well-respected in the community, no one will tell you so?

&

I

guess

that’s

how

it

is sometimes.